


A Moment to Unravel

by Teaotter



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Apocalypse, Character Death, F/M, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-01
Updated: 2006-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-07 08:44:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teaotter/pseuds/Teaotter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe it's better to die while you're still living.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Moment to Unravel

You find him approaching the camp in the gray twilight. He's out of place, from the long-healed mark on his forehead to the sharp tread of his boots. His scent is stronger than any you've smelled in years: well-fed, and not-sick, and _clean_ in a way you don't remember from ever.

He knows you. He _knows_ you, and it makes him slow. You let Mig and Dimmi take the weapons from his body, but you take the bracelet that looks too much like Swarmer tech. Kids shouldn't handle that shit. It's warm from his skin.

He's a big man, but not so big he drags the ground much when you throw him over your shoulder. Rory wants to talk to anyone you find out here, so you'll bring him back to camp. If he works for the Swarmers, she'll know, and you and she will move the kids again. She'll know. And maybe she'll know why he knows you when you don't know him.

  
**//FLICKER//**   


He tells Rory he's from another time and she laughs in his face. It's not the laugh when she's happy, but the laugh when she's angry. You know she's thinking Swarmers, and moving, but you tell her to hear him out, because he knows her, too.

He says he's from the past, and this isn't the future that was meant to be, and he says he knows how to stop it.

Rory gets in his face and tells him there's nothing to stop. She says the world is over and just too stupid to lie down and die. There's no _stop_.

And it's true. It's not like you can't say it in front of the kids. You're all just staying alive til the Swarmers finish rounding up everything they want from the planet and wipe the rest clean. Nothing stops the Swarmers, and sure as hell not a handful of hungry kids and a couple of washed-up freedom fighters.

Rory's still bitter about it. She's still angry.

And you can see him see it and flinch before the sky outside flashes. He knows what she can do. He _knows_, and he can't possibly know.

You see Rory see it, too, and it's the first time in a long time you've seen that hope spread slowly across her face. It hurts, that you couldn't keep it there, and you'll kill him real slow if he put it there to hurt her. She touches the mark on his forehead like he's breakable.

  
**//FLICKER//**   


He says his name is Bishop. He says he comes from a future that doesn't exist anymore. That he went back to the past to change it and got stuck. That it's why he remembers the way things are supposed to be.

You tell him 'supposed to be' is a crock of shit.

He laughs like he still thinks things can get better.

He tells you it all starts with the Bender. The plague wipes out one in four, except the mutants. Rory knows it killed her parents, left her alone on the streets. You know it left bodies in the gutter for a year.

The government blames it on mutants. Puts a lot of them in cages. You know that, too. You and Rory, dragging people through snow and fog and across the border, night after night. You and Rory, back when you both thought it would be enough someday.

Then the war, humans and mutants. Nobody wins. Then the Swarmers come, and there's not enough left of anybody to stop them. Two out of three, Rory always says. But the third one's too much.

He says that someone now is building a time machine. Taking the Swarmer tech and turning it to a way out. But they're carrying the Bender, like everyone else here's carrying it, and they'll start the whole damn thing when they drop themselves back in time.

Rory asks who, but you both know he's gonna say Gemini. A raider who rounds up for the Swarmers, in return for a town and a ticket on the ships when they leave. There's lots of that kind, but Gemini's the only one close enough.

Bishop isn't here for you and the kids. The camp's just on his way.

Rory asks what happens to him. He's got the Bender now, as much as anyone, or he will soon enough. He can't go back, either.

You hand her the bracelet, and she turns it over and over in her hands like something precious.

It's only one-way, he tells her. I can't get back. And if we can't stop Gemini by tomorrow night, we're all dead anyway.

And Rory says we, and she means her and you and him. It's good to see that fire in her eyes, see the confidence coming back into her stance. It's so fucking good to see her alive again that you can't point out that you're all gonna get killed. Maybe it's better to go out while you're still living.

  
**//FLICKER//**   


That night she is fierce and angry and hurting and _hungry_ like she hasn't been in years. You don't need to sleep, and you know she won't, even if she wears herself to nothing in your arms. You know you'll lose her, to death or time, no matter how many memories she tries to burn into your skin. It will never be enough.

She tells you, over and over, any world, any time, she would find you. Love you. Never leave you. And you tell her, yes, and promise, yes, always. Anywhere.

You don't tell her that she's pregnant again, not now. There's no room in the world for babies, but Rory might not believe that. Or worse, she might. You don't want to watch her make that decision.

And you don't tell her what he told you. That you are both alive and fighting in this world he knows, heroes but not lovers. It doesn't make sense. You can't imagine a world where her heartbeat doesn't make you live.

  
**//FLICKER//**   


The kids refuse to stay behind. Bishop is appalled that you even consider bringing them. He doesn't understand that everyone here is dead anyway. Rory tells him to stop arguing before he misses his deadline.

You approach Gemini's town from the south. It's cold, and gray, and Rory brings down a drizzle and a fog that'll keep most of the wall guards huddled in their raincoats and not looking for a half-dozen kids sneaking around.

The bombs go off in the northeast quarter, and the three of you go over the wall while the guards are looking away.

You follow the power lines to a warehouse with the windows painted black. The doors are locked with Swarmer tech, but Rory just shakes her head and pulls in all the sparks in the air around her. You drag Bishop down to the ground just as lightning crackles between her and the power lines, between her and the doors. The smell of scorched metal and ozone fill your nose before the doors give way.

  
**//FLICKER//**   


You duck in, low and left while Rory takes the right. Bishop comes in center and catches a laser blast from above. It doesn't burn him. He just glows for a second, then shoots it right back at the guy on the catwalk. One down.

There's more lasers, some yelling, from the catwalk and around the floor of the warehouse. You duck behind a stack of crates and listen to the crackle of laser fire and smoldering wood. You find one of the guards between you and the next aisle, and sink your claws into the flaw between the chest guard and her shoulder. You can smell blood and smoke and ozone from Rory zapping away on the other side.

In the center of the room is a tremendous machine wired and taped and spitting sparks. It doesn't look like a time machine, but Bishop shoots his next bolt straight at it -- and it bounces off at a crazy angle with a green shimmer. Swarmer energy shield. You told him that.

Then you hear Rory scream. You don't hear her fight back. You catch the next guard and throw him into another on your way across the warehouse floor. Rory's _down_.

She's down and clutching at her chest. She caught a laser beam just under her shoulder. There's blood, but not a lot -- it's mostly cauterized. It's her wheezing that's the problem, you know, and the faint bubbly sound of blood in her lungs. Rory doesn't heal like you. She might make it, if they've got an autodoc in this town somewhere. If you get her out of here.

You're hidden behind a stack of crates, and it's not too far to the side door. You might make it.

But she shakes her head at you. She tries to say Logan, and I love you. But the only noise she manages to make outside of breathing is _Go_.

The fight's gone quiet. Bishop's down, somewhere, and the guards are hunting around real careful. They don't know how many more there are. You put Rory down gently, silently, and move enough away that stray fire shouldn't catch her --

And run straight for the machine.

  
**//FLICKER//**   


You don't stop at the first pain. The heat, you expect, and the smell of cooking meat. But you can still run, so you do, just keep --

You don't fall over until your legs give out. Can't be sure what shot went where but the next is to the gut, and damn, but that hurts --

But you're right at the edge of the defense shield. You can see it snapping green sparks just inches from your fingers. You smell your own blood, familiar, seeping sticky around you.

The stomp of boots comes closer. Stops. There's laughter from the guard. You don't react when he kicks you in the ribs. Idiot can't see you're still breathing.

The boots wander off. You don't listen to them, to what the guards say. Can't hear them, if they find Rory. If she's still breathing, she'll bring the place down. Or maybe she'll wait, like you. Wait.

  
**//FLICKER//**   


You breathe real shallow through the pain, smell your own blood, familiar, seeping sticky around you. Just inches from your fingers, the shield sparks dance. Dance. Die.

You let the little grenade roll from your hand. Watch it touch the machine.

Let the world go white.

  
**//FLICKER// //FLICKER// //FLICKER// //FLICKER// //FLICKER// //FLICKER// **   



End file.
